News: InDesign Drops Support for Print Publishing
[Editor’s note: This was our 2008 April Fool’s Post]
We’ve just learned that in the next “dot” release of InDesign (version 5.0.3.1.r42), Adobe is removing all support for printing. The File > Print command will be replaced with File > Export to AIR and the various print-based PDF Presets will be removed, in favor of three new presets, including one for PDF/X-6 (which, as we’ve previously reported, supports only transparent objects on layers, converting opaque objects and images with transparency effects when necessary).
“You have to look forward,” noted Shantanu Narayen, C.E.O. of Adobe. “Sure, print had a good run of it. But we believe designers have lost interest in that medium. Why would anyone want to print, now that Flash has been released for the iPhone?”
We reached Michael Ninness, senior product manager for InDesign, who affirmed the news. “XHTML. Flash. PDF. XML. This is the future. Ink is messy. InDesign is clean. In a clean world, there is only clean output. It’s an inconvenient truth, but we’re going green by eliminating paper output workflows. Pure AIR.”
Other features in the free, but mandatory upgrade include:
- Feature degradation (individual features and tools will begin to break down over time, eventually failing around the time the next fee-based upgrade is released).
- RealType integration (where typos are introduced by the software randomly, in order to make your final product more realistic and “human”)
- Panels (which were “palettes” in CS2) will now be renamed “poodles”
We expect the release to come sometime in the next week, and Adobe Updater will download and install the 1.8 Gb update automatically.
Of course, if this causes any concern, be sure to check your date and comment below.
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Great news!
I am suprised you didn’t mention the news that Microsoft bought Adobe and was dropping the mac versions too.
I am so mad! Adobe doesn’t care about my needs! I am going to delete all Adobe apps from my hard drive right now and design in Word!
Flash for iPhone? Preposterous!
I am suprised you didn?t mention the news that Microsoft bought Adobe and was dropping the mac versions too.
Finally! I’ve been waiting for this change for so long.
Breaking news: A major plug-in developer from California just announced an InDesign plug-in for print output. The 300 Mb big and almost stand-alone application called OutDesign will be available next week exclusively via e-mail and at a reasonable price.
I believe in the future of publishing, too, but Adobe can’t leave behind those of us who have their feet firmly rooted in the past. I, for example, use InDesign as a bridge between digital technology and my Gutenberg Press. I use InDesign to create art which is then, through the Print Menu, laser etched on wood type and printed like in the good old days.
The future? No Print in InDesign? I guess I’ll be switching back to Harvard Publisher…or QuarkXPress.
THIS IS GREAT NEWS!!!! I am so sick and tired of all these ink issues. We have been stuck with the same old colors for hundreds of years so this is a decision that was long overdue. I am slightly disappointed that they are not releasing the new FIND/REPLACE HUMAN feature at the same time but I can hope that it will come out in the .5×22 update.
That was a good one- had me going for a second or two!
This is not a rumor, it is true. It’s a requirement of the California Green Desktop Initiative we signed to provide a humane alternative to arboreal mastication. Do any of you know what paper is made of, anyway?
Or ink? I don’t even want to go there.
I was wondering if you guys would mention this bit of news.
Obviously there are going to be those who have trouble with this development.
But let’s be frank. How many times, if EVER, you have seen any demo or tutorial or speaker or session where someone actually PRINTED the document they were showing?
And how many times do attendees at conferences worry about a fancy transparency feature with the comment “But will it print?”
This new feature will avoid all those worries. (Although I have always stated “What is this preoccupation with print. Doesn’t it look good on screen?”)
But thinking about all the demos that people do with InDesign, if the next improvement shouldn’t be taking out the Save command.
After all, how many times have you ever seen an InDesign trainer or demonstrator actually save the document they were working on?
Well, I’m getting much too old to lift those heavy lead pieces. I can sharpen my quill…that will work! ;-)
My office is actually a bit more proactive still. We’ve introduced a printer into our network that doesn’t print.
At least it hasn’t, yet.
At my work, they didn’t bother waiting for Adobe to get around to this. They just took our printer away.
What’s print publishing?
I’ve been wondering will the “Feature degradation” actually be a feature or will it be a bug, maybe it already is? Hmmm I wonder.
hahaha, I love the “typo bot”
Random typos would make a great plug-in to install on my editor’s mac. Just think how much money I’d make correcting her mistakes!
Time to switch back to PageMaker 3! It’s just not natural to be able to open more than one document at a time!
At last! That took entrepreneurial guts! Yesterday is the past, today is the future. Print is dead, long live Air. I totally agree with Sandee, now we will finally be able to demo start to finish workflows. It all starts on-screen, and stays there. Wow. I am so excited, almost weeping… gotta go spread the news. Bye.
Wonder of wonders! I won’t have to deal with 93 different printer interfaces. I think I’m in heaven. Can’t wait to pass this on to my boss the Printing Manager.
It’s about time…no more white box problems.
Thank you, Adobe!
I think this is a bad idea, there are still people out there (myself included) that need to print for proof matching, magazine ads, flyers, posters…this is ridiculous in my opinion, actually working in the real world requires the ability to have that tactual feel. Not everyone works primarily in presentations and web based apps…just open any magazine to figure it out
Mark, please be sure to check the date of the post, and the link at the end of the post. Don’t panic…
*teehee* had me going for a second :p loved the comments at least as much as the post
good one guys!
Personally I haven’t printed anything in years. If a customer asks for information to take home, I usually just hand them my laptop and off they go. I buy ’em by the gross.
LOL Jeff!
I agree w/Christa, the comments here are as great as the post itself. You guys are too much ..
Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of print,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered PDFs;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split websites…and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of…wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence.
Hov’ring there, I’ve escaped the shouting wind of a long meetings, and flung
My eager mouse through footless halls of air.
Up, up, the long, delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the windswept heights of paper recycle bins with easy grace
Where never lark, nor even sea gull flew.
And while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of iTunes space…
…put out my hand, and ever stretching to touch the end of the internet.
Adapted from: High Flight
by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.
That by far was my favorite “Fool.” It had me going for a while. Considering I finally, after 3 years, convinced everyone at our paper to switch from Quark to InDesign exactly 1 month ago, I’d of been up S**TS creek.
Ruth, that poem is priceless. You may or may not know that I also included Magee’s poem in my book The Flying Book.
This year has been really bad for my gullibility record. I have been taken in, even for a few seconds, on 5 to date. Good thing I didnt listen to NPRs Marketplace yesterday. There would have been emails. Shows how reactionary I am.
Hah! I was listening to Marketplace last night while making dinner, and the story stopped me in my tracks … I’m going, “no way. That is not possible! Are they insane?” hahaha… then I realized it must be an April Fool’s joke. And it was … it sounded so legitimate, though!
For those who didn’t tune in, it was about an alternate way the IRS is handling the economic stimulus check for some citizens. Full story here.
I’ve looked at paper from both sides now,
It’s ink’s illusions I recall,
I really don’t know printing at all.
Another Adobe foolish move. So i guess it’s Indesign for web and Quark for print, right? Good riddance. Pretentious product anyway.
P.H., umm… I’m sorry, but I’m laughing too hard to reply properly…
Okay you got me, man I almost went and told my boss we need to reconsider using ID after 3 years of investment!!! Hmmm I think I still have a few copies of Ventura knocking about heh. Ha ha good one ;)
Looking to the future is all well and good, but I think it’s unrealistic and controlling to force everyone into going paperless. There are certain things our customers (including myself) want to hold in their hand and read. If nothing was printed, we would NEVER get away from our computers. And I think most people spend way enough time there as it is. What’s wrong with offering both?
No print! Working in the PRINT industry (newspaper) our customers demand proofs of their ads. Not everyone is in the fast lane of the electronic age. Most all of our clients do not want electronic proofs. Adobe, please keep in mind that everything is not built around the web. Well, at least for now it isn’t.
Wow…
As I ran across this old post that caught my eye,
my jaw dropped. Funny thing is, one of my major clients was told by another design firm that Indesign was being discontinued.
She will get a kick out of this!
Nice one…
M
What’s print?
As far as I know Adobe & Apple have some experiments going on in regard to «paperless life». Project name is InEye: a small ball looking quite similar to our eyes. It will take in all digital informations and projecting them via bio-electronical nerves into our brain.
In combination with the tiny InEar set and the wonderfull InHand device the computer will not be anymore the machine for the rest of us, but the machine IN all of us.
Nancy?s fear of NEVER getting away from our computer turns into be a great vision: Our computer will ALWAYS be near (and dear) to us. Very near …
By the way: For those who can afford there will be a luxurious InEye version too: a hybrid one with an in-build HDR camera so that from now on the user will see MORE than there is.
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Almost two years old and still funny! I didn’t noticed the date until y hover my mouse on the wiki link and saw the link title!
I must admit the a got fooled with the 2009 Interactive Apps canceled one. I’m not into flash so i didn’t tryed to know more.
what will be up for 2010?
Alright — you got me! My blood was starting to curl until I got to the “poodles”.
Thanks for the fun!
Great, paper and ink are things old. Now, All is in the Air!
[…] News: InDesign Drops Support for Print Publishing […]
Of course this is an April Fools joke InDesign is not dropping the ability to go to Print Dont worry
Ridiculous prank. Many of us take using our computers AND printers as seriously as we take our own businesses for which we use that equipment. A joke is a joke, but messing with my ability to earn a living is in very poor taste.
Marshall Ostrow
May 19, 2015
Wow. I’ll leave it at that.